


Pisaura mirabilis

by equals_eleven_thirds



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agnes can have little a nice childhood maybe, Gen, canon-typical bad parenting, implied spiders, mention of people burning to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equals_eleven_thirds/pseuds/equals_eleven_thirds
Summary: (common name: nursery web spider.)Agnes is eleven years old, and she goes to live at the House On Hill Top Road. Someone there is expecting her.
Relationships: Agnes Montague & The Web
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Pisaura mirabilis

Agnes is eleven years old, and she goes to live at the House On Hill Top Road. No one asks her if she wants to go; they just tell her she needs to do this, it’s _very_ _important_ , so that someday she can bring the Lightless Flame into the world and burn everything away, which is another very important thing she needs to do. And so she goes.

Standing on the steps, she is _very very careful_ not to burn the little brown suitcase that holds everything she has in the world. (Everything she has _for now_ , they’re quick to reassure her, because she’ll have anything else she wants when she’s done being at the House On Hill Top Road.) But while she’s there this is everything she’s supposed to have, so she sets it down slowly in the snow that covers the House’s porch, and clasps her hands behind her back.

Raymond Fielding answers the door, and he must know who she is. He must, because he sucks in a breath and then opens the door all the way and lets her inside, and he is _very very careful_ not to touch her at all. She’s glad about that. Sometimes when people touch her she burns them up the way she’s supposed to burn up the world, and then they aren’t around to touch her anymore, and she doesn’t want to do that to Raymond Fielding. She’s supposed to live in his house. It’s _very important_.

He does not touch her, but he does walk her down the hallway to her room. She isn’t surprised that there’s a room ready for her. In the future, she will think that Raymond seemed almost startled to see it, or perhaps to see that it had been prepared perfectly for her: a bed low enough for her to climb in easily, a vanity with a mirror hanging at her eye level, a small dresser with just enough space to hold everything she unpacks from her suitcase.

Right now, though, all she wants is to lie down in that perfectly-her-sized bed and sleep. It’s oddly tiring, to leave behind everything you know. So she smiles at him, and reaches out to close the door, and smiles a little wider when he lets go of the door before she even touches it.

It’s night when she wakes, but Agnes does not particularly care about time; the Cult of the Lightless Flame hardly kept regular hours. What she does care about is that her unfamiliar blankets are wrapped tight around her legs, and her unfamiliar room is silent and still and empty, and unfamiliar streetlights are streaming in through her window at a different angle than back home, and everything is _different_ and _wrong_ and she is all alone and _desperately_ wants to scream.

But: Agnes has to live here, in the House On Hill Top Road. And she cannot live in the House if she screams and cries and the House burns away to cinders around her.

Besides, she is eleven years old. She can take care of herself.

So she gets up out of her bed, pushing at the fabric until it falls onto the floor. She finds the lamp at her bedside and clicks it on, flooding the room with light until she can’t even see the streetlights. She perches on the chair at the vanity and picks up the brush she brought from home, humming softly in the silence while she brushes out her tangled hair.

She is so preoccupied with taking care of herself, in fact, that she does not notice the door open or the footsteps approaching until the person in her room speaks.

“Oh, dear. Did something wake you, Agnes?”

Agnes does not jump. She is _eleven_. She does pause her brush for just a moment before continuing. “No. I woke myself.”

The girl behind her smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners. She’s pretty and tall and looks almost grown-up, so she’s probably one of the oldest children living here. She leans down until her head is at the same level as Agnes, so she can meet her eyes in the mirror. “I know how that can be. First night in a brand-new place. I keep telling Ray, the new kids need extra care, but he does get set in his ways.”

“Mm.” Her hair is all brushed so she separates it into strands, trying to part it the way Diego always does. It’s hard to tell if the back is even.

The other girl keeps talking. “You especially must need special attention. Why, I think you’re the youngest in the house since—oh, at least the 40s? I think we had a boy here who was just ten years old, although he wasn’t really sure about it either. Most of them now are nearly adults by the time we get them.”

“Mm-hm.” She isn’t trying to be rude, exactly. She’s just not that interested in the other children here, and she can feel her hair pulling unevenly somewhere at the back of her head, if she can just work out where.

“And okay, maybe I’m a _bit_ biased, but I’m always so excited when another girl comes to stay. Boys are lovely and all—Ray is one, and I do adore him—but it’s just so nice when I get to talk one girl to another.”

“Hm-urgh.” The one pigtail she’s managed (messy, but it would do—would have done) falls out of the hair tie she’d secured to one end, and Agnes isn’t quick enough to catch it.

“I’ve got it!” the other girl says, ducking down and plucking it off the floor. She waves it triumphantly, then stops and frowns, tilting her head to the side. “You’re having some trouble, aren’t you? Here, let me help.”

Agnes doesn’t realize _why_ the girl is reaching out until it’s too late. She doesn’t have time to warn her, to jerk away, to stop this stranger from burning herself up by trying to help—it’s already too late by the time “No, don’t—!” reaches her lips.

And then the girl is running a hand through Agnes’ hair, picking apart her poor attempts at braids, smoothing out the strands, that smile still on her lips and her eyes still meeting Agnes’ startled ones in the mirror. “Don’t? Do you not like other people braiding your hair?”

Agnes can feel her breath caught in her throat as she stares. A stranger—not even part of the Lightless Flame—is touching her, fingers against her scalp and neck as she pulls her hair into neat braids. And she does not burn. She can hear the shock and disbelief and wonder sparkling in her own voice as she breaths out, “How are you doing that?”

The girl laughs and lets go of the finished braids, planting a kiss on top of Agnes’ head. “Control, Agnes, that’s all.”

It sounds so simple, but— “Can I learn?”

“Of course you can! Anyone can, really. If they try hard enough.”

“Can you… teach me?”

The girl laughs again. “Of course. That’s why I’m here. That’s why _you’re_ here, although Ray didn’t know that.”

And—she should have asked earlier, probably. But better late than never. “Who _are_ you?”

“Hm.” She tilts her head like she’s considering it, but her eyes are so certain, more than anyone else Agnes has ever met. Even Diego. Even Arthur. “I suppose you can call me the same thing Ray calls me. Mother.”

**Author's Note:**

> Spider fact: Pisaura mirabilis, common name nursery web spider, is so called for the female spider’s habit of making a protective nursery web for the young and standing guard over that web.
> 
> \---
> 
> (find me over on tumblr at equalseleventhirds, where i yell a lot about tma and other fandoms, and might be working on a sequel to this fic)


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